Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy (10 page)

So Marissa and I pull the bundles completely out of the chute and separate them as Hali stomps around, ratcheting the dials and pulling on the water in all three washers. Then she takes a huge container of liquid soap and glub-glubs some into each machine, not even bothering to measure. “Sheets and cases in this one, spreads in this one, and blankets here.”

Marissa scoops up the blankets. “You think these'll all fit?”

Hali nods. “I know they'll fit. Just cram 'em in there.”

I tried not to think about it. I just picked up the pile of sheets and pillowcases, walked them over to the machine, and stuffed them around the agitator. And I kept reminding myself that really, there
was
no evidence, so it was fine to wash the bedding. F-I-N-E, fine. But still, as the sheets swished back and forth beneath the growing tide of suds, I felt like an accomplice.

An accomplice to murder.

And I felt like I couldn't tell anyone about it. Not even Marissa. It was too horrible. Too unbelievable.

And too embarrassing.

I mean, how many people do you know whose mother would go and kill someone—not for love or hate or revenge or even raving mental lunacy, but so that she could play an amnesiac on a soap?

Welcome to my nightmare.

Hali clanged the lids closed and headed back to the kitchen, saying, “So, what can I get you girls? Eggs? Toast? Waffles?”

I almost said, Nothing. But then I realized that I was starving. Starving for something I wasn't going to get in Reena's kitchen—or probably in all of Hollywood.

Oatmeal.

Grams' oatmeal.

All of a sudden I missed her like I never had before. She was like her oatmeal—warm, hearty, and dependable.

My mother, on the other hand, was like some fancy, finicky soufflé—beautiful on the outside, full of nasty asparagus tips and onions on the inside. And where oatmeal can hold a spoon straight up in a hurricane, little things like drafts and clanks and bumps will collapse a soufflé into a pathetic heap of unresponsive goo.

And I was busy wondering how a person as fragile as a soufflé would go about killing someone when Marissa nudges me and says, “Sammy? What do you want?”

I just blinked at her.

“For breakfast?”

“Oh, doesn't matter.”

So Marissa says to Hali, “Anything's fine. Whatever's easy.”

“What's easy is cereal. Two bowls of that?”

I say, “Sure,” and Marissa—who's dying for waffles, toast,
and
eggs—says, “Uh…sure” too.

So Hali scoots around the kitchen, banging and clanging her way around her mom. And Reena's trying to talk to her with her eyes, but Hali's not making contact. Instead, she calls over from a cupboard, “You got a preference? It's mostly oat bran and whole-grain stuff like muesli. Oh, wait! There's Rice Krispies. You want those?”

Like Rice Krispies could hold a spoon straight up in a hurricane. Please.

But Marissa says, “Sure,” so Hali pulls down the box and shoos us over to a small plank table that's pushed up against the wall. We sit at each end of it while Hali clanks bowls and spoons in front of us, thumps down a gallon of milk, slides a sugar bowl across the table, and flips us some napkins. And as she's doing all this, she's moving faster and faster, and I can just see her stewing about something, getting madder and madder.

“Hali,” I whisper. “What is going
on
? What are you thinking about?”

She stops and looks at me and then literally
seethes
, “Like it would've killed the creep to spring for tuition.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” she snaps, and then stares. Just stares. Not at us. Not at what's on the table. Just kind of through everything, off into some private dimension. And when she comes back to earth, she looks at each of us, says,
“That Nazi!” then flies around the kitchen, slamming drawers and cupboards until she's got her own cereal-chomping equipment. She scoots up a chair, sits down between us, and says, “Pass the Krispies.”

Take snap-crackle-pop, add scoop-shovel-slurp, and you've got what Hali did through three big bowls of Rice Krispies before she belched and started on a fourth. And just as she's sprinkling on the sugar, I look up and freeze because there in the kitchen doorway, with her hands on her hips, is Inga.

Inga the Angry Mummy.

And even though it's a big kitchen, she's filling the whole thing with big bad mummy vibes like you wouldn't believe. And there's no doubt about it—they're aimed straight at Hali.

Hali scowls at her. “What's your problem, Inga?” Inga's yellow eyes pop right open, and over from the sink, Reena gasps, “Hali!”

Inga steps into the kitchen. “My problem? It would appear my problem this morning is you.”

Hali laughs. Just throws her head back and laughs. “You got no idea how right you are.” Then suddenly she stops laughing and stands. “The help's not supposed to be eating on the job, is that it? I gotta clock in and clock out to have a snack? This whole arrangement is a joke.” She points to Reena. “She's a joke. You're a joke. Your brother's a joke. This whole place is one big stupid joke.”

Reena whispers, “Hali,
please
….”

“They're Nazis, Mama!”

It was like setting the Mummy's fuse. She fizzed and
spattered at the mouth while her eyes got bigger and bigger beneath her bandages. And for a minute there I thought she was going to explode and plaster the room with cotton shrapnel. “Nazis? You ignorant, insolent child! How
dare
you!”

Reena races over to Hali, grabs both her hands, and pulls her away from the Gauze Grenade, pleading, “Hali, go. Go to the house. I'll be there in a minute.”

Hali shakes her off but then bursts into tears and charges out of the kitchen. And the door's barely swung closed when
whoosh!
it swings back open again.

Now, I was expecting it to be Hali, charging in for another attack, but it wasn't Hali. It was the Plaid Rabbit. Only she wasn't looking like a rabbit anymore—well, except for that nose of hers, twitching away. But she wasn't hopping around. She was shaking. “Inga! Do you know where Max is?”

Inga hadn't quite defused. “No! Why should I know where he is?”

“I've got to find him! Do you have any ideas?”

“Did you check his office?”

Twitch
. “Yes.”

“Did you
knock
?”

“Yes.”

“His suite?”

“Yes!”

“Then I don't know—go look around!”

But Tammy doesn't leave. Instead, she looks over her shoulder, then steps completely into the kitchen, holding the door with the palms of both hands as it swings closed
behind her. She leans forward and whispers, “There are two policemen and a homicide detective here, Inga. They want to talk to Max.”

“A homicide detective? What for?”

I held my breath and waited for the words I knew were coming next.

“LeBrandi didn't overdose on sleeping pills … LeBrandi was murdered!”

NINE

Now, you would think that when someone comes into a room and makes the announcement that a person's been murdered,
this
would be a time for people to faint or gasp or cry out in disbelief. But nothing like that happened. Tammy's hands stayed plastered to the door, Reena clutched a dish towel, squeezing one end like she was milking a cow, and Inga just stood there, frozen like a museum piece. The only sound was the quiet
swish-swish
of the washing machines next door.

Marissa nudges me across the table and whispers, “You were right!”

I couldn't even look at her. I just stared into my cereal bowl and felt myself shrivel up inside.

Finally Inga says, “Surely there's been a mistake!”

Tammy shakes her head. “She was
suffocated
.”

“Come, now! How can they tell that? And they've only had her a couple of hours!”

“Look, Inga. They took a blood test, all right? And it came back negative for drugs, all right? Other than that, I don't know! Go ask them yourself, would you? I can't find Max, so you go talk to them!”

Inga says, “Take me to them,” and off they go.

When they're gone, Reena takes a deep breath, hangs up the dish towel, and leaves, too.

Marissa says, “Why would someone have killed her?
Who
would've killed her?”

I just keep looking down at my soggy cereal, wishing with all my heart that I didn't know.

Marissa drops her voice and raises her eyebrows. “Oh, this is creepy. This is just too creepy! It happened, like, right
next
to us. I mean, if there wasn't a wall there, we'd have seen the whole thing! God, who do you think did it? Do you think it's someone who lives here?” She raps me on the head with her knuckles. “Sammy? Knock, knock! Are you in there?”

I mumble, “Yeah. I'm right here.”

She stares at me. “What is
wrong
with you?”

I sit up a bit and say, “Nothing. I'm fine. How am I supposed to know who killed LeBrandi?”

“But …” She looks at me and shakes her head. “Don't you even care?”

“Well, sure. Okay. So who do you think killed LeBrandi?”

“I don't know, but I'll bet it has something to do with that brooch.”

“The brooch?”

“What if that stone
is
a ruby? My mom's got a necklace that my dad gave her—it's a single ruby set in a hanger, and it's nowhere near the size of the stone in that brooch, but still, it was real expensive.” She leans in a little and drops her voice. “And what was
LeBrandi
doing with the brooch if Opal stole it in the first place?”

I blinked at her. I'd been so wrapped up in my mother that I hadn't even thought about it, but she was right. Maybe LeBrandi had stolen the brooch from Opal. And maybe Opal knew it and was so mad about it that she'd come back for revenge.

But how'd she know to go to my mother's room? That didn't make sense at all. But maybe they had talked. Maybe she did know! Maybe my mother hadn't killed LeBrandi after all!

It was like Marissa had pulled a rip cord to my brain. I could feel it sputter to life, smoking and choking my old thoughts out, revving up until it was running clean and strong and
fast
. “Okay. Opal stole the jewels out of Max's drawer—LeBrandi saw them or found out about them somehow, and managed to lift the brooch off Opal before she moved out. Or maybe she blackmailed her for it. You know, I won't rat on you if you cut me in?”

Marissa nods. “Okay, but then what?”

“Well, the jewels are hot. You can't
wear
them, so they're only valuable if you can find someone who's willing to buy them off you.”

We look at each other and at the same time we whisper, “Seventy-seven curio!”

Marissa says, “Maybe it's a street address?”

I count on my fingers, 7-7-C-U-R-I-O. “A phone number?”

Marissa points to a telephone mounted on the wall near a fire extinguisher. “You want to give it a try?”

I take a quick look around, then scramble for the phone. The number rang. And rang. And rang some more. And
I was about to give up and hang up when a man with the voice of a grizzly bear says, “Cosmo's Curios.”

I cleared my throat and said, “Uh… can you tell me what your hours are?”

“Nine ta six,” growled the grizzly. “Closed tomorrow and Monday.”

“Uh… and where are you located?”

“Sixty-six thirteen Hollywood Boulevard.” He slurped something from a cup. “You buyin' or sellin'?”

“Uh… selling.”

Slurp
. “Well, come on in. I'll make ya a good deal.”

When he hung up, I turned to Marissa and said, “Sixty-six thirteen Hollywood Boulevard.” I hooked the receiver back on the wall. “C'mon!”

“Come on? Come on where? How are we going to get to sixty-six thirteen Hollywood Boulevard, and what are we going to do when we get there?”

I peeked out the kitchen door, my brain still running full throttle.

“Sammy, don't just leave! Where are you going?”

“Shh! I have to try something. Come
on
!” I waved her along, and we tiptoed down the hall, past the dining room, then took a right through Little Egypt to the back door.

Now, when my mother had let us in the night before, all I'd really seen was the pattern of the entry code, and even though I didn't know if I'd be needing it or not, I didn't want to leave without being sure I could get back in. So I made Marissa wait inside while I went out and closed the door behind me.

First I checked the handle. It was locked. I punched in 2-8-6-4.

Still locked.

I tried crossing over the other way with 2-8-4-6, and bingo! I let myself in.

I grinned at Marissa and whispered, “The code's 2-8-4-6, c'mon!” I dragged her out the door, down the steps, past ferns and palms and periwinkle vines, clear over to Hali's cottage. “I'm praying the code hasn't been changed since Opal got canned.”

“Praying? First you don't care, now you're praying? God, you're acting so weird today!” Then she mutters, “You're reminding me of Hali!”

I knocked on the frame of the cottage's screen door and called, “Reena? Hali? Hello…?” as I peeked into the front room.

A door inside slammed, and Hali's voice cried, “I don't care, Mama! I don't
care
! He's a coward! A fraud! A
liar
! And you! You should've told me
years
ago! Like it's not my right to know?”